We signed a lease, and caught the "crud"...

This week Zak and I decided to venture into Suwon, Zak had never been there before, and obviously neither had I. We took the metro and it only took us about 30 minutes to get there. The station in Suwon is like the station in Pyeongtaek, it is a giant mall! But the one in Suwon also has an underground mall. We looked around the mall (AK Plaza) and I found the holy grail of make up! I was so convinced that Korea did not have any brands of make up that I am used to using, but little did I know it was all hiding in this mall. :) As we were walking through another level, we spotted some odd "art"... if you can call it that? Apparently someone has a fascination with making dead bugs smoke cigarettes and battle with each other...

And me with an alligator made out of scraps:

After we shopped around there a bit we went outside of the station and starting looking around at all the stores in Suwon. We were pretty hungry at this point and decided to go to a Korean BBQ, where you do the BBQ'ing yourself. They just give you a bunch of meat and a hot stone, and your supposed to know what to do with the rest! We winged it by watching what everyone else was doing, and must not have been doing it right because a waitress came and re-arranged the whole thing for us! Here is a picture of Zak while we were BBQ'ing:

After we ate I went into a beauty store that I had scoped out before we had dinner. Upon entering I was handed a basket of free goodies such as lotion, face wash, and ICE CREAM! And I also ended up buying some more face lotion.. and got more free samples! I love Korea!

Some time between then and now Zak and I caught the dreaded Korean crud. It is known that most countries have different organisms and germs hanging around and we were bound to be plagued by them at some point no matter how much we used germ killers. It really is not fun to describe how we are feeling, but I think we are getting better... until we meet up with some new germies.

On a better note, we signed our lease for an apartment! It was quite a process, being that our realtor and land lord are Korean. Our realtor speaks broken english, and the land lord doesnt speak a bit of it. We had to do negotiations with them and then go on Camp Humphreys with them and sign the lease with the housing office. Im happy with the way it turned out, since we have such a nice place! The only expense we need to cover is our cable and internet. We will be moving in this weekend, our first night will be on Monday. Since we have none of our house hold goods yet, we will be sleeping on our new sectional until some time in September, hopefully earlier! But I would rather be in our "home" than in a hotel, and I don't mind sofa sleeping. :) Here are some pictures of the new place, they aren't very good... but they will suffice until I can do a video walk through for everyone!

I forgot to take pictures of the master bedroom, and the two other rooms that will be our workout room and office. After we move in I will post the walk through video! :) Have a great weekend everyone! 

A week's review of Korea

I think this has been the longest week of my life! Between all the jet lag and adventuring around Korea we were more than ready for a lazy Sunday! Earlier in the week I said how Zak and I discovered the great shopping mall in the Pyeongtaek metro station, but failed to mention the awesome pizza we had at the Pizza Hut here in Korea. They have an American menu and a Korean menu, and the pizza's can get a little crazy! (Im talkin' sweet potatoes crazy) So we went kind of low key and ordered their version of a Hawaiian Pizza, which comes with awesome cheesy fondue bites as crust! You rip off these sweet potato and cheese filled bites and dip them into a bowl of cheese fondue.... they are delicious! Here is a picture so you can get an idea of what I am describing:

Later in the week we decided to make a trip into Seoul, well Yongsan actually but we were basically in Seoul.  We visited the tallest mall I had ever been to, I think it was about 8 stories tall. We rode an express train which only took about 45 minutes, as opposed to taking the metro which would have taken us well over 2 hours because of all the stops. It is 4,500 won (equivalent to about $4) to ride the express train into Seoul, so it is well worth it! Here I am on my first train ride!

And this one is of me in the center of the mall where it is all outdoors, it kind of looks like I am on a ship:

We picked up a few things at the mall, and I quickly realized that I don't fit in most Korean clothing.. due to the hips my mother blessed me with! lol But we had fun nonetheless and also ate some grrrrrrrrreat sushi! I still can't get over how inexpensive food is here.

On to other things- Korea has a store called "Skin Food" meaning food for your skin, lotions, face wash, make up, etc. Zak and I decided to pick up some face masks to see what all the hype was about, and here is my detailed review/demonstration... enjoy!



Haha, pretty crazy huh? And while my skin did feel rehydrated by the "Alaskan glacier water" that is supposedly in this product, I don't think I will be buying it again because it felt as though I had a jellyfish on my face.

Yesterday we were invited to go to Zak's co-worker, Brett's home to have dinner and go out. Brett and his wife Kathy are great, and we also met up with another one of Zak's co-workers named Danny. After munching on some turkey and having a few pre-game beers we headed out for our first night on the town! Korean clubs/bars are a bit different than American bars but are still just as much fun! The main beer here which is served in all bars is called "OB" and tastes like Miller Lite to me. And all bars have Soju mixed with different flavors depending on where you are. We tried just about every flavor last night and are paying for it today! Here is a picture of Zak breakin' it down on the dance floor:

And me enjoying some Soju Slush! (It is VERY humid in Korea so please excuse my mop of hair going every direction)

Hope everyone is having a great weekend, much love to you all xxx

We are in Korea!

Yay! We finally made it to Korea! I am so excited to share some of the pictures we have gotten on our first day. Traveling was to be expected....long! I was so happy to get off the flight. We had the best service ever on Asiana Airlines, even though we sat coach I felt like we were in first class. You know, the steam towels, great food, slippers...etc. Here is a picture of Zak and I leaving the hotel on our way to the airport!

And one of me before we went to our gate:

Here is the plane we were on to Korea, I think it looks like a whale with that hump on the top:

So after we landed and went through customs, we were greeted with a man look for "Jack and Nikky" (pronounced NEE-KEE) The ride from the airport to our hotel was a bit long as well and Zak and I didn't get much sleep on the airplane.. well none actually.. so we were fighting to stay awake during our taxi ride. It is weird to not tip anyone in Korea, and they are all about customer service, more so than the American's who work in customer service that get tipped. Our hotel is nice, they have a great breakfast and free laundry service... but the toilet is a bit weird, it has lots of buttons... and the shower has eight shower heads...yes, eight. After we got some rest we woke up this morning ready to go walk around Osan (where our hotel is) and Pyongtaek (where Zak will be working). Here we are in Osan:

We took the train into Pyongtaek, and when we got out of the train station Zak had thought we were in the wrong place but quickly realized we weren't.. there has just been so much built up in the last 3 years to recognize what he remembered. The have a huge shopping mall in the Pyongtaek train station, its 6-7 floors with a movie theater and pool on top. Here is a picture of Zak playing with a claw machine in Pyongtaek:

(They have these everywhere)

So we had a pretty successful first day in Korea, I have learned how to say "hello" and "thank you" and I have also learned how to use the money (won) here. Off to conquer some more jet lag....

Annnnnd we are off!

In a few minutes we will be checking out of our hotel and checking in for a flight that will begin the next four years of exciting adventures in Korea. Thanks to everyone who has helped us out in the past year while we were preparing for this move. We hope that we can share some awesome times with everyone through this blog. Zak and I are so excited to finally start our lives in Korea. And for those of you who would like to know where Korea is in location to the United States:

I will update when we have arrived on the other side of the world!

Much Love-
Nikki and Zak

Tales from an airport

Let me back up first and say that my husband and his uncle, Keith, decided to light off giant fireworks in the backyard last night. Fireworks that apparently ONLY out of towners can buy here in Pennsylvania. There is a store that you are only allowed to enter if you have a state ID from somewhere other than PA...being Florida residents meant that we can buy any explosives we wanted. So $100 and two packages of fireworks later we sit in "ooh and ahh" at the loud boomers just 200 feet above us, and then it rains down ash like Mount St. Helens erupted. The neighbors and the dog were thrilled. he he

I will let Zak show you how awesome the fireworks were... (best viewed in 720p)


Pretty exciting huh? I'd like to mention how much Zak resembles "predator" in that video...

So here we are now, sitting in the Philadelphia airport listening to babies screaming and the news anchor talk about Mel Gibson. We are on our way to Los Angeles for the night, and we will be leaving for Korea tomorrow afternoon. Woo hoo! Zak's phone is disconnected so if anyone needs to get a hold of us before we head out please call my cell phone, it wont be shut off until after the weekend.

:)

Happy 31st Anniversary to the Alley's!

Don't forget the good ol' days!

Happy Anniversary!

With Love-

Nikki & Zak

Part two of trip down south.. and update on move.

After spending 4th of July weekend in North Carolina we headed further down south to see Zak's Dad and Eleanor in Georgia. There is just something about Georgia that Zak and I love, you can have the hustle of Atlanta  and also the calmness of floating down the Chattahoochee River....oh and LOTS of shopping :). We arrived  pooped from the weekend at Kathy's we had to nap and recover for a day. After we recovered we headed to the Chattahoochee to do some lazy river floating with the fam. The lazy river floating turned out to be the "This raft is made for a child, why is this water 50 degrees, I really need to pee...damn this beer is tasty kind of day". Unfortunately Zak's camera battery died and he left the charger in California.. (which by the way the hotel mailed back to us, to the wrong address and no one lived there so now our package got forwarded to this lady's house 2 hours south of here...and we got charged $50 for all of this... and still no camera/computer charger.) So no pictures of this water adventure....but I was able to snap an awesome photo of Zak's tan line on his feet that was caused by wearing these.

The best part about visiting Zak's Dad and Eleanor are margaritas followed by a mean game of badminton... and their cat is pretty cool too. ::Shout out to Stewie::

(Eleanor and I)

(Stuart trying to hide in the jungle)

(Zak ready for some badminton action!) 

We also took Zak's family out to Korean food...so we could get them hooked on it and hopefully have a visit from them while we are out in Korea ;) Right Eleanor? The dinner was awesome and Eleanor ordered some sort of seafood pancake with octopus tentacles in it... but she wouldnt touch the mildly compared Korean BBQ Beef... I on the other hand ate wayyyyyyyyy too much and feared that I might be in trouble because I seriously love Korean food too much. At least they dont eat bread and cheese there, I could spare to cut out a few carbs!

I tried to introduce Stewie (the cat) to Pleo (our dinosaur) and he got so upset that he slept behind the TV for the rest of the night, hey at least I got a good picture!... Ok Stewie to make you feel better I will post some photos of the giant bug you stalked and chased away... this wasp like creature was dragging a giant spider behind it.. take a look for yourself.

(Pleo meeting Stuart)

(Stuart stalking scary bugs...they are the blur...wait for it....)

(Scary bug carrying even scarier spider)

It gives me the ebbeeegeeebeees just looking at this.

Anyways: 

After getting "home" from our trip down south, we had a lot of organizing and unplugging to do before the movers came. We took everything down from the walls, puttied all the holes we made... packed lots of luggage... and had a really long night cleaning and figuring out what we needed to take with us on our flights since we wont have our household goods for another two months.

The movers came yesterday and it only took them about 3 hours to pack and move all of our stuff out, I was so happy that I was not the one packing this time! I have done that too many in the past 18 months. So now we sit here at Zak's Uncle Keith's home with his family, and they are so awesome for letting us stay whenever we find ourselves homeless! We leave on Friday to LA and fly to Korea on Saturday... I will update before then.

Thanks for reading!

4th of July weekend in North Carolina!

Its been a while since our last blog post so this one is filled with lots of exciting things!

Zak and I decided to drive down south for our holiday (week). Our first stop was Kathy's house in Charlotte, NC. We had a blast white water rafting (yes I took on the rapids again!) and boating on Lake Norman. I was able to meet up with a cousin I haven't seen in a looooooong time.. ok like I was in the womb last time we met. Laura and her husband are renovating an awesomely old home from the 1900's if you are interested read her blog about it here. It is great to meet up with family..considering I don't have much of it in the United States! After we met up with my cousin we went to South Carolina to see a live band play and catch July 3rd fireworks. Below are photos of our night!

(Kathy and I)

(Zak and I waiting for the fireworks!)

(Zak's sis Brittany and Kathy!)

On 4th of July we all headed to The U.S. National Whitewater Center. They have everything from rafting to kayaking, hiking, rope courses, zip lines...etc. We had so much fun! (Pictured Below)

Zak loves to be adventurous, as do I (ok..well, im trying!) so it was definitely an awesome day. The whitewater rafting is all done on a man made river that was/is used for Olympic Training. They have rapids ranging from Class 1 to Class 4, and each boat sits about 6 people.. plus a river guide... as long as your river guide stays on the raft and doesnt fall off on the biggest rapid and leave you wondering what the hell you should do without him... good thing we decided to pick him back up..

Here are some photos of our rafting adventure..

                                               Gearing up to go!

Heading down the rapids with Brittany and Kathy in the front! (Kathy later realized that this is the roughest seat in the house...and it later landed her in the water..good times, right Kathy?)

Next we went flat water Kayaking and it was a great break from the thrill of the rapids.. I tried to get all of us in this one... 

The best part of the day (in my opinion) was watching a lady being coaxed of a giant tower that you are supposed to walk off and simulate falling to your death. Ok so its not that bad, but really this lady would.not.jump. Kathy and I chickened out at first but decided since that lady could do it.. so could we! We kept reciting "Just walk off, dont give yourself enough time to think about it.. just do it!" Here we go:

(This one is Kathy)

(This one is me!)

(and this is Zak and I) 

The Whitewater Center had the best fireworks show we had ever seen! It was at least 30 minutes long, and I think everyone in North Carolina showed up for it! The next day we went out boating on Lake Norman, we arrived on time for our rental to find out that the secretary is playing hooky (darn those 4th of July brews eh?) and the Marina guys had no idea what to do! But eventually we got in our boat and then found out we had no gas.. and lucky for us, the whole marina was out of gas too! So the manager came up with a plan and we followed him to a nearby marina with the fumes we had left in our boat and filled 'er up! After that fiasco we headed out on the lake, enjoyed a few coronas and lots of sun! I think Zak is a natural...

More blogs to follow on the rest of our trip...